Case study 3 – Interim FD

A US VC had bought a famous UK specialist retailer out from a larger group, but (surprisingly perhaps) had not put much thought to the accounting and admin needed the moment the ink was dry on the paperwork - it soon became clear they had put far too much reliance on ‘Transitional Arrangements’ where the old group finance department would manage things.

This is all very well, but a new entity needs a VAT number. And if you get put on stop by suppliers because the old finance team will not even draft a cheque so the new owners can spend their own money, things are not good.

And if you have multi-million pounds worth of eminently stealable (and fencable) stock, it would probably wise to put the complex insurance in place before the assets are yours, not after!

But there you go.

So my job was to quickly get alternative banking in place to side-step the awkward squad over the road and even more quickly get those insurances in place.

That done, the accounting needed to come back in house asap. I made a proposal for a really neat system but they opted for SAP (which was far over the top for the old, full group, never mind tho small part) to several times the price. Time for an orderly handover to the long-term FD